This Day in History

February 10, 1948

Thomas J. Watson, Sr. Aims IBM to Create the SSEC.

Enjoying a change of climate in Florida, IBM's Thomas Watson, Sr. sends a directive to IBM headquarters to begin planning "a machine of the same type as the Harvard Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) to meet the requirements of the ordinary businesses we serve." The resulting machine, the Selective Sequence Controlled Calculator (SSEC) was completed on January 27, 1948, and contained 21,400 relays and 12,500 vacuum tubes.

February 10, 1996

Deep Blue Defeats Kasparov

In the first game of a six game match, IBM's Deep Blue chess computer defeated world champion Garry Kasparov. No computer had ever won a game against a world champion in chess. Kasparov would eventually win the series 4-2, but would lose to Deep Blue in a re-match a year later.